Net Promoter Score (NPS) Research

Net Promoter Score (NPS®) is based on assumption that every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. By asking one question — How likely is it that you would recommend [company X] to a friend or colleague? — you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company’s performance through your customers’ eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point scale and are classified as:

• Promoters (score 9-10) – loyal customers who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) – satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to your competition.
• Detractors (score 0-6) – customers who can damage your brand and growth through negative word-of-mouth.

To calculate your company’s NPS score, you simply take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.

Originally, Fred Reichheld posited that NPS was the only measure needed to determine a company’s health. Since then, he and co-author Rob Markey revisit the metric and now recommend using NPS as part of a holistic system for driving profits.

Infosurv Research recommends these best practices for using the Net Promoter Score:

• Use a customer loyalty index consisting of the NPS question with other questions relevant to your business, such as overall satisfaction or likelihood to purchase or re-purchase.
• Conduct a key driver analysis to identify the attributes or components that have the greatest impact on NPS.
• Make sure the scale you use is reliable for your business purposes.
• Use open-ended questions to probe for underlying reasons behind a respondent’s answers.
• Correlate attitudes with actual behavior to identify the most salient metrics.

By creating a strong understanding of your customers’ attitudes and behavior, by using multiple satisfaction metrics as decision guides, and by developing a customer-centric culture, you will create internal systems and operations that will keep your organization on track in creating customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Click here to see why you shouldn’t use Net Promoter Score as a stand-alone metric!

To pick our brains about using Net Promoter Score in your business, contact us today.